Tomato ketchup is a processed tomato product seasoned by adding kitchen salt, spice, sugars, edible vinegar, vegetables and so forth to a tomato raw material, and it has a soluble solid content of 25% by mass or more.
In the process of producing the tomato ketchup, heat treatment such as germicidal treatment is ordinarily applied, but this heat treatment reduces a fresh flavor peculiar to tomatoes. Accordingly, conventional tomato ketchup lacks a fresh flavor of fresh tomatoes.
Meanwhile, a method for improving fresh feel of the processed tomato product has been also reported. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses blending in finely-milled egg shell in order to obtain a tomato sauce having fresh feel of tomatoes. Moreover, Patent Literature 2 discloses addition of fermented alcoholic beverage using a citrus as a main raw material together with a tomato raw material in order to obtain a processed food in which a fresh flavor inherent to tomatoes is developed.